Former GP3 racer Carmen Jordá has been announced as Lotus F1 Team's official development driver alongside third driver Jolyon Palmer, plus race drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado.

Jordá is now the second female driver in F1 besides William’s Susie Wolff. The 26 year-old Spaniard, after podiums in Euro Formula 3 and a part-season in Indy Lights in 2010, had a less than stellar record in GP3, her best race finish being 13th after three seasons. Indeed F1 Fanatic has pointed out she currently has none of the necessary points to obtain an FIA superlicence for racing in F1, and that in 2013 Dean Stoneman was able to win twice in the same car after she dropped out from the last four races. But in a statement Jordá was thrilled to get the role: “I've been racing since I was 10 years old so it was my dream to drive a Formula 1 car since I was very young…It’s such a fantastic opportunity.” She added that: “I will be working to improve myself as a driver as well as helping the team to develop the car by testing new developments in the simulator.”

Lotus continue to test their new E23 at Barcelona, with Romain Grosjean completing 75 laps and finishing 5th fastest today.

I can see why Lotus chose her, lets look at her AMAZING GP3 career
2012: 28th
2013: 30th
2014: 29th
Fun fact about her and her amazing driving, in 2014 she was dropped with 4 races to go and the person who went on to replace her (Dean Stoneman) took a pole position, two wins and a second, when the amazing Carmen scored a big fat zero after almost a full season.
What a driver...More like a what a joke
She shouldn't be anyway near an F1 team and that's not being sexist, the same goes for anyone who has such a bad track record, at least Maldonado was somewhat successful at times

Premium Member

I can see why Lotus chose her, lets look at her AMAZING GP3 career
2012: 28th
2013: 30th
2014: 29th
Fun fact about her and her amazing driving, in 2014 she was dropped with 4 races to go and the person who went on to replace her (Dean Stoneman) took a pole position, two wins and a second, when the amazing Carmen scored a big fat zero after almost a full season.
What a driver...More like a what a joke

TXL RacingPremium Member

I would like to see more women in motorsport and there are cleary some out there, that would be competetive, but it is a shame, that we only had very unseccessful examples so far. I mean in her racing career starting in 2005 she scored no win, no pole position, no fastest lap and only two podiums in 2009 and three in 2007, that is just bad. Not that I could do it better, but after 9 unseccessful years you are related to Lotus F1, which won multiple championships.

Max Chiltion, which a lot of people rate as a driver, who doens't deserver a drive in F1 even if i is only a Marussia. He started in 2005 had 10 wins, 15 poles, 3 fastest laps and a whapping 29 podiums and the last two years he was in an F1 backmarker team. So do we need to put him in a Merc? Definetely not.

There are for sure better female drivers out there than the ones that have the publicity at the moment. There are some good women racing GT cars as well as in the Ginetta juniors in the UK. I hope we see some real good ones making it to GP2/3 and F1 in the future. But making a woman a test driver just because she is a woman is sexist. Pointing out that her results are bad is just a fact.

I can see why Lotus chose her, lets look at her AMAZING GP3 career
2012: 28th
2013: 30th
2014: 29th
Fun fact about her and her amazing driving, in 2014 she was dropped with 4 races to go and the person who went on to replace her (Dean Stoneman) took a pole position, two wins and a second, when the amazing Carmen scored a big fat zero after almost a full season.
What a driver...More like a what a joke
She shouldn't be anyway near an F1 team and that's not being sexist, the same goes for anyone who has such a bad track record, at least Maldonado was somewhat successful at times

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uh GP2 2010 Champion with some stunning driving, 1 race win 1 pole position in F1, i think you shouldn´t have mentioned maldonado at all in the category carmen jorda..

Being a female myself I thought I'd chime in.
I am not familiar with Carmen nor her track record but if those results Darren mentioned are common for her well then I have to agree with Ricardo.

"If you ask me it is sexist but then the other way around, she probably got selected for the publicity of having a female driver in the team, not because of those amazing results"​

This is a bit of a gray area to me - for lack of a better expression. On one hand I would love to see more women have a shot at F1, however, I don't want to see women who truly don't deserve the seat get it, no matter how much publicity it draws to the sport I love.

Personally I would have liked to see Simona get a shot, as I would love to see what she's capable of and I really like her character. Is she better than any of the other present F1 drivers? I don't know but we would be naive to think only the best get a seat as too much money is involved and teams have chosen drivers for the size of their "purse" before.

So... I'd love to see a woman driver in F1 that isn't known for being a woman but rather a great driver.
Bailey

Ted Kravitz Appreciation SocietyStaffPremium Member

Simple decision for Lotus... Money and PR.
She's not earned this position on merit, which is unfortunate for both her and other drivers out there that missed this opportunity.

Last year she went completely pointless the entire season, before which her team gave her seat to Dean Stoneman for the final 4 races of the season in which he took a pole position, two wins and a second place in the same damn car she drove.

Don't get me wrong, I think Formula One needs more women, but they need to be there based on merit, not money or PR, and unfortunately, she's not.

#21 MPB ClanPremium Member

It's sooo heartwarming that we have come to a point in society that if you criticize a woman for being bad at the job in the same way you would criticize a man you will be immediately labelled a "sexist pig". /sarcasm end.

Seriously though, on one hand there are good racers like Ashley Freiberg who constantly stay on the top row and won in brackets with extremely tough competition, epic team managers like Leena Gade of Audi LeMans program who took her team to multiple victories and then there is someone like this lady who is just a plain old backmarker with no special qualifications in her resume even if you scan her entire career. I know it makes a team look "progressive" and all if you have women working in there but atleast have some form of quality control for crying out loud. Do the same qualifications that male drivers require in order to be eligible for a super formula license suddenly not apply for women or something, if so how in any form is lowering the bar for them in such an unsubtle way "empowering"? This decision on Lotus' part is just highly amusing.